Redirection
by White Angel of Auralon
Summary: After a prank gone too far, Sirius Black realises that things have to change. He never wanted to follow the path of his parents and the realisation that, in certain ways, he was like them wasn't good. His life from there on took another direction. One person certainly found this new Black heir very interesting.
1. Acknowledging Mistakes

**Hi everybody. This is my new story. The others ones are still in work and I wrote this in the meantime, especially while I was stuck at the hospital after the surgery to be able to breathe better. I am really glad I went that way.**

 **Now the standard disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JKR does, and I just get to play in the world she created.**

 **The story is already fully written and will have a chapter posted each weekend. Happy reading.**

* * *

 **Acknowledging Mistakes**

Sirius Black looked at the things he had done during the past two years at Hogwarts. Many might wonder why he, the normally carefree Gryffindor boy, would do so. Most thought him incapable of being serious, even always making a pun of the word with his first name. But he was actually horrified with how he had behaved. He had wanted nothing more than distancing himself from the behaviour that his parents showed. The arrogant 'purebloods are the cream of the crop' stupidity that his family believed in. He didn't consider muggles and muggleborns worthless. He actually found them interesting.

To not appear as if he had a stick up his butt, he had taken to playing pranks, causing chaos and spreading fun. At least that should have been what happened. People laughing at his pranks and enjoying them. Now, he found out that they weren't all that much fun. He had coincidentally come across a crying girl, who had been the target of the latest prank that Peter had thought up and which they had all set up. The prank had dropped glue-like jelly onto a group of girls that had scorned their pranks as immature and rude. They had agreed to retaliate, but Sirius had never wanted to become what he now realised he was. A bully. As bad as his parents.

While he might not share their opinions, he shared their arrogance of thinking himself smarter and better than others. He shared their casualness in hurting others. And that realisation made him feel sick inside. He hated how his parents behaved. He didn't want to drop to their level. He needed to change things and quickly. He decided to have an honest look back, make a list of their pranks and try to see how bad they had really been from an objective point of view, not a view of a hothead when he was currently angry at somebody and decided that any kind of prank was justified to avenge the perceived slight.

He skipped History of Magic, no great loss with the boring ghost teaching it, and sat in one of the unused classrooms to write down everything he could remember. After the double period ending, he felt even worse than before. How could he have done all of that? He was as bad as his cousin Bellatrix, who couldn't care less who she hurt. While her victims felt physical pain when she was done with them, his victims were in emotional pain. And he realised that he had to stop it immediately. This path was the wrong one. And he had to convince his friends to stop as well. They would get in big trouble if they continued. He saw a spiral that had constantly become worse. Their first pranks had really been harmless, things like colour changing charms on the robes of the Slytherin Quidditch team, which made the robes circle all kinds of colours for two hours. Then it stopped. And it was a practice session, so no real harm done. A good and harmless laugh. But magical moths in their lockers that left their robes in tatters wasn't fun, it was bullying. Well, even if the others didn't want to stop, he would refuse to go for hurtful pranks, no matter the target. Even Snape with all his spitting vitriol and making verbal snipes at them, especially James, didn't deserve being bullied all the time. Mostly just because he refused to give up his friendship with Lily Evans.

* * *

Sirius had distanced himself a little from his friends. They hadn't really seen his concerns as that bad and thought he was blowing things up over nothing but a bit of harmless fun. He had decided that for now he would concentrate on his studies and Quidditch. He was a beater on the Gryffindor team after all, which was a great way to vent some pent up anger. Excess energy could also be worked out if he spent hours training his body. A beater need a lot of upper body strength; thus he could easily explain his change in habits. Many Quidditch players did that when they joined a house team, simply to not lose the coveted spot against a rival. He had also found that Ancient Runes was a subject he really liked and that there were countless great opportunities of things he could do with the knowledge about them. Warding, Enchanting, Curse Breaking, all highly respected professions that required large amounts of knowledge about the symbol language.

And all areas that the Blacks so far hadn't really gone into, meaning it wouldn't lead to him being automatically compared with his less than pleasant relatives all the time. Another project he was still working on was becoming an animagus. It had been James' idea, after puzzling out what Remus' constant disappearing acts and symptoms meant, simply to not leave him alone during the nights of the full moon. And mastering the animagus transformation was considered proof of a mastery in the subject. And masters of any kind were highly respected. That was something he wanted for himself. True respect for his accomplishments.

* * *

Sirius didn't know that his change in behaviour had attracted the attention of another person, one that had watched him for a while now and was pleasantly surprised in how he was not behaving anymore. She had been really annoyed at how he and his friends behaved all the time and to see him now, being more serious about his studies and not participating in the cruellest of so-called pranks, was certainly intriguing. She decided to investigate a bit more. And she had the perfect topic to start an innocent conversation.

"Is this seat taken, Black?" She asked politely.

Sirius looked up and found a pretty blond girl looking at him, pointing at the empty seat at the table he had chosen to work on in the library. He knew her, she was in his year in Ravenclaw and shared his Ancient Runes and Charms classes with him. But she had never spoken more than a brief greeting before.

"Sure, feel free to sit there, Princeton," Sirius nodded.

"Thank you," Primrose Princeton replied and took the seat.

"Any specific reason you chose my table? I mean, there are a lot of other ones available," Sirius asked.

"I wanted to talk about the assignment in Ancient Runes that we have been given for the next month and I noticed in class that you had an easy time in the subject. Therefore, I decided that speaking to you about it would be beneficial," Primrose explained.

"Ah, I understand. What can I help you with?" Sirius asked.

"You see, I understand how most runes interact with each other if you use just one alphabet, but Professor Digens wants us to write the essay about the dangers of interactions of different alphabets," She explained.

"True, it is a little complicated," Sirius acknowledged and then started explaining the topic, as much as he had got from his studies, the ones ahead of the material covered in class.

He also found out that Primrose was a nice conversation partner, who didn't seem to mind that he liked pranks, as long as they could actually be called pranks. To his great astonishment she started discussing different pranks with him and he had a lot of fun talking about the ways to incorporate runic arrays into his pranks, next to using them in defence against dark spells. While charms were useful, runes could hold out longer and didn't need active thought to do their job.

Before Sirius knew it, it was close to curfew. He really hadn't noticed how the time flew until Madam Pince told them that the library was closing for the day.

"Wow, we really need to do this again," Sirius commented while they walked towards the main staircase, "I had a lot of fun with you."

"I certainly enjoyed it as well. How about we meet once a week to study for Runes and, if you'd like to, some other subjects? And when we're done, we could work on side projects. I would love to have some innocent fun with my dorm mates. They only have studying and attracting a good match on their minds," Primrose suggested.

"Yeah, I can understand how that can be annoying. I have training on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in the evenings right now, next to during the day on Saturday. We could use Wednesdays, as Mondays are when we have Astronomy," Sirius suggested.

"I'd like that, Black," Primrose agreed.

"Sirius," Sirius asked.

"Okay, but call me Rose please, Primrose sounds so stiff," She said.

"Gladly, Rose," Sirius agreed and the two had to separate when the way to their respective common rooms was in opposite directions.

* * *

Many who had known Sirius Black for years were terribly confused. The brash and arrogant boy was changing visibly. He wasn't part of the crueller pranks against other students, when he played a prank, it was actually a funny one, which left the victims laughing after a while, as the most he did to them was embarrassing them a little, but not so much that they felt humiliated in front of others. And he was a good sport for retaliation. He rose in popularity among the students in his year and the teachers held him in higher regard than before. His grades, which had already been high before, shot up all over the range of his subjects again, which was very strange, as his group of normal friends didn't show the same.

Things became a little clearer when, for the Hogsmeade weekend in February, Sirius was seen going with Primrose Princeton. The two seemed to be close and even Sirius' friends accepted that he was pursuing a pretty girl and left them to their own devices over that. Not without a lot of good-natured ribbing of course. But others saw that Primrose was a very good influence on Sirius. She tamed his extreme habits and directed them into more acceptable paths without trying to change his overall personality. And it was clear to everybody with eyes that Sirius Black was falling hard for the pretty Ravenclaw witch.

They could be seen laughing about outrageous decorations for Valentine's Day, comparing different books on Ancient Runes at the bookshop, buying way too many sweets at Honeydukes, with Sirius paying for the majority of them, eating lunch at the Three Broomsticks and generally having a really good time. James decided that he needed to start betting pools on his best friend's love life and many others were soon drawn in, making bets when the two would share their first kiss and so on.

* * *

 **Time skip 5th year**

Sirius groaned under the high workload that had been heaped onto the fifth years, as their OWLs would be taken at the end of the year. The teachers were honestly convinced that they had to cram every single bit of knowledge about magic into their heads before the important exams were taken. He didn't mind learning all the stuff, he liked learning new spells and potions, but he didn't like the homework going along with it. And on top of that he also had a lot to do. He had been, to his extreme surprise, named prefect for Gryffindor after all.

He had been sure that, if Professor McGonagall would choose one of the boys in his year for a prefect, it would be Remus. He was after all less active in pranking people than he still was. But when he had asked, he had been told that while he could cause enough chaos to drown Hogwarts, should it be materialised in form of water, he was also the one that looked out for the younger students and ready to help them out. And the chaos he caused was the kind that you could only shake your head about exasperatedly. But it was never malicious and actually in good fun, which his group of friends still had trouble understanding from time to time.

Sirius was happy with his life at Hogwarts. He had a wonderful girlfriend in Rose, his grades were at the top of their year and his parents had ceased to send him howlers all the time for being a huge disappointment. After all, while he still didn't behave like they wanted and expected from him, he at least proved the 'superiority of the Black blood', which was seen as mitigating circumstances. His mother still tried to pressure him into following the family creed, but he flat out refused. And, thanks to his studies, much to her annoyance, he could defend himself against her, even when she used the darker spells in her arsenal. His father was more interested in the possible alliance with House Princeton, should the relationship between Sirius and Rose hold.

And Sirius wanted that it held. He had realised not so long ago that he had fallen in love with Rose. It had been a huge surprise when he noticed how deep his feelings for her had become. Orion Black had taken to wait and see concerning his oldest son. As he couldn't force Sirius to do what he wanted, he would try to work around his stubbornness. At least that was how Sirius saw his father's behaviour. One problem was the war that was raging outside of Hogwarts. People were killed or vanished without a trace and it was clearly the work of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. To his everlasting shame, he had to say that a good number of his relatives were part of his ranks.

Bellatrix for sure and probably Narcissa as well. His parents supported the agenda financially and other parts of the Blacks also did. He really hated that. How could anybody support a murderer? It was so wrong.

He shoved the thoughts about his family aside. There was no sense in darkening his mood over their actions. He could only do his thing and see to it that he was different to them. When he looked up from his finally finished Potions essay, he saw that James seemed as exhausted by the workload as he was.

"Why the hell do they have to give us this many essays?" James complained, his head lying on his open book and he had a look of suffering on his face.

"True, they could keep it to spell practice and short questions to be answered for homework," Remus agreed, "Much more efficient in my opinion."

"How the hell do you manage it, Padfoot? You also have prefect duties and Quidditch to deal with on top of everything," Peter asked while massaging his aching hand, which had got cramps over the writing load they had.

"Extreme time management, Wormtail," Sirius replied, "But believe me, it's not easy. I agree with Moony on the topic of what kind of homework would make things more efficient."

They had all decided upon nicknames among their group once they had managed to find their animagus forms. Peter was a rat, James a stag and Sirius a large, black dog. Prongs for the antlers, Wormtail for the naked tail, Padfoot for the large pads on his feet and Moony for the night when they would stay together in their alternate forms. The first one to get the transformation had been James, who simply had a knack for Transfiguration. Sirius hadn't been far behind though and he had the easiest time changing back and forth between his human and animal forms. Peter had needed the longest and lots of help from the other two, but now they were all animagi.

"When do you have your next patrol?" Remus asked.

"At ten. Thankfully, I managed to make a deal with Hobbing to give me the same shift as Rose's. It's much more fun to patrol together with her. Nothing against Evans," he knew that any word against her would enrage James, "But she is too much of a rule stickler at times."

He ignored any kind of protest against Lily Evans' faults and simply sat back, wanting to relax a little before continuing with his homework.

* * *

Rose and Sirius were on their patrol, which these days could go wrong, if they came across a secret meeting of wannabe Death Eaters. There was a high number of them at Hogwarts, as a lot of darker families told their children that it was a great honour to fight for the pureblood cause.

"Things are getting more heated in Ravenclaw," Rose mentioned.

"Is Selwyn giving you any trouble?" Sirius asked knowingly.

"He tries, but I manage to hold my own against him. And he's not as forceful as his younger brother in Slytherin is. But he has got it into his head that, as a pureblood that supports You-Know-Who's goals, he has a right to any witch he wants, and sadly that target currently is me," Rose sighed, "I told Professor Flitwick, but he can only do so much until Selwyn actually does something against the rules, as Professor Dumbledore, for all his words and stance against the Death Eaters, doesn't really punish those breaking the rules properly and doesn't act when there are just threats underway."

Sirius put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

"Don't worry. While I may be the less loved son, I'm still the second in line to inherit the Black title. And grandfather won't disinherit me, as long as I don't openly flaunt that I disagree with my family's opinions. As long as I toe the line, I will keep my position. My father also likes that I'm dating you, therefore he doesn't pressure me too much. I guess he has resigned to me at best being neutral to their ideals," Sirius pointed out, "And Selwyn would have to be an idiot to openly go against me."

"Hopefully you are right, Siri," Rose commented, "So far he has just tried convincing me that I would do better with him as my boyfriend. As if I would date such a brutal wizard. He has no tact and thinks that a witch is meant to follow his every whim."

"I hope you did prank him thoroughly for that opinion. He's really the lowest kind of trash thinking that," Sirius asked.

"Of course I did, but he is stubborn," Rose replied, "Are you going to stay over the Christmas break?"

"Yes. I can argue that I want to concentrate on my studies, as it's my OWL year. It will spare me going to the boring balls that my family drags me to," Sirius nodded, looking pleased at dodging that for this one year.

"I convinced my parents to let me stay as well. They want me to do the best I can in the OWLs. They were quite disappointed with my brother's NEWT results last year," Rose told him.

"Then we can certainly find a lot of time to spend together," Sirius said happily.

"I was thinking the same," Rose nodded and moved to kiss Sirius, which he happily returned.

* * *

Sirius sat opposite his grandfather, his OWL results being in the old man's hands right now. Sirius was very proud of his exams. He had got nine O's and one E in his ten OWL subjects. The one E was in History of Magic, which he didn't like very much, as Binns was so boring. Still, an E in the subject was better than most students did. He had even beaten out Lily Evans for the top spot.

"Well, Sirius, you have certainly done well in your education. I'm proud of you," Arcturus Black stated, looking at his oldest grandson with distinct pride.

"Congratulations on doing so well, Sirius," His grandmother Melania added as well, smiling at him, "You certainly proved the superiority of the Blacks. If only your cousins would do so as well. If I think of Narcissa's NEWT results, well, thankfully she already planned on concentrating on her duties to her husband in society. She would have had trouble getting a high position anywhere. Really, to fail your NEWT in Charms!"

Sirius bit back a grin. That had been a big disappointment to the Blacks.

"Thank you for the praise, grandfather and grandmother," Sirius replied formally.

He knew how to play the game.

"Well, I also wanted to discuss something with you, Sirius. As you are now sixteen years old and have passed your OWLs, it is time for you to start working for the family more," Arcturus mentioned.

"I will do so within certain limits, grandfather," Sirius replied cautiously, "I won't do anything that could be considered breaking the law for example."

"What your grandfather is hinting at is that we would like to see that you start looking for a suitable bride. As you know, it is important to keep strong connections that benefit the family," Melania explained.

Mentally Sirius sighed in relief. This was something he had been prepared for. It was after all still common in the noble wizarding houses. And he had talked about it with his girlfriend and she was fully in favour of accepting a contract between the two of them.

"I wouldn't be opposed if you started negotiations with the Princeton family for Primrose. I have been dating her for two years now and I want to stay with her," Sirius replied, not showing any outward signs of uncertainty or surprise, making sure his grandparents knew that he had already expected this topic coming up some time in the near future. Foresight by calculations was seen positively by the Blacks after all.

"The Princetons? Well, they are a respected pureblood family, even if they lean more towards the grey area instead of the dark faction that the Blacks belong to. A good choice, Sirius. I am somewhat surprised. I actually thought you would give us more trouble," Arcturus commented.

"I would, if I didn't love Primrose already," Sirius admitted, "But we have talked about this a few times over the last year at Hogwarts, as she is in the same position as I am and a betrothal contract would solve a number of problems for us. As long as it is with a girl I love, and the contract doesn't entail heinous clauses, like the possibility of forcing one of the spouses under total control of the other, I don't mind being placed into a contract."

Melania and Arcturus nodded at that. They knew too well that their grandson didn't agree with the ways the Blacks did many things, but if he was willing to keep up appearances, if they just compromised on some parts, they could live with it. And from the reports that they had from Horace Slughorn at Hogwarts, Sirius and his girlfriend belonged to his Slug Club after all, Sirius leaned more towards the neutral faction. He wasn't a naïve light supporter, like his best friends, who believed Dumbledore too easily, but he also despised the ones supporting the Dark Lord. Well, as long as Sirius played along, they could at least prevent him shaming the family. He did present a proper image after all, even if he was in the totally wrong house.

* * *

Over the next three weeks Sirius was kept informed about the progress of the negotiations between the heads of the houses of Princeton and Black. Rose also wrote to him about the Selwyns trying to force her parents to sign a contract for her and Valerian Selwyn, the same boy that had tried to make her his girlfriend during the past year. Her parents were honestly relieved to have a better option in the Black heir, as not even the Selwyns would be able to give them grief over choosing Sirius Black over Valerian Selwyn. The Blacks were simply higher in the pecking order and Sirius had proven himself as much more powerful than nearly all his classmates and those in higher years put together. He was the best match they could find among wizards their daughter's age.

Which was actually proven by the number of inquiries into possible marriage contracts by other families that had daughters his age. Alone the week after the OWL results were known, there had been fifteen offers for Sirius. His mother Walburga had wanted to accept the offers of one of the darker oriented houses, but Orion and Arcturus knew too well that if they did that, Sirius would stop playing along and give them real trouble. Trouble they didn't need after what had happened with Andromeda. After all, how would it look for the Blacks to have the most promising member of the younger generation run away, because they pushed him too far, when he offered an acceptable middle road?

As it was common with contract negotiations, Sirius and Rose didn't get to meet on their own before the contract was finalised. The general agreement was given quickly, but the details needed a bit of time to be worked out. It was actually a short time for a contract to be negotiated, but the agreement of both concerned parties made it go much faster. Sirius got to see his girlfriend again, after missing her like crazy for those weeks, when it was time to sign the contract. It was done at Black Manor, with his grandfather and father looking at him satisfied when he put his signature under the contract, next to the one Rose had given before.

Once the contract had flashed to signal that it was now binding, he couldn't hold back anymore, he pulled Rose into his arms and kissed her happily, wanting to make up for lost time. He didn't see the smirks on the faces of the adults. They were content that something that was beneficial for their political goals actually made the teenagers happy.

* * *

"You are what?" James exclaimed shocked.

"Betrothed, Prongs," Sirius answered amused.

"Why would you agree to that?" James asked aghast, sitting on his bed in his room at his parents' house.

Sirius had come over to share the news with his best friend. While he didn't like some of the harsher pranks of the Marauders, he still liked hanging out with the guys and after a while, after seeing that Sirius was more popular than the other three boys of the group in Gryffindor, they had started to tone down their pranks and their image had improved. Even if James didn't let off Severus Snape. Sirius knew that something had happened at the end of last year, but James had been strangely silent about the incident. Sirius hadn't been there, as he had a private celebration with Rose after the DADA OWL was done. They had taken a walk around the lake and had only come back to hear from others that James and Snape had got into a fight, Lily had tried to break it up, but had been insulted by Snape, which made her drop him as a friend. But details were actually hard to come by. Peter and Remus were also keeping their silence over the incident.

"Because I love Rose. We had talked about the possibility of solving her problems with Selwyn by me asking my family to negotiate for a contract with her. We were sure that we wanted to stay together. And I'm really happy. You know how my parents think, Prongs. This way I could at least prevent that they chose a bride for me from one of the dark houses. A girl that thought like my crazy cousins," Sirius shuddered at the thought.

"I guess that's true, but a contract is barbaric!" James declared.

"As long as it is with the girl I love I couldn't care less. You know how the world works. There is enough trouble with Voldemort being on the warpath against everybody he doesn't like. Pureblood customs offer you a measure of protection. And while I don't fear standing up for what I believe in, I know how to choose my battles. Remember, I was raised to one day become the head of the Blacks, after my father dies. I know the politicking that is going on behind the scenes. And my family is more insistent on holding onto outdated traditions than most. I knew that I would have to confront the reality of marriage contracts after I passed my OWLs.

"I didn't openly confront my family if it wasn't worth it, simply to prevent that they messed up the rest of my life. Coincidentally Rose falls into the pool of witches that they approve of, as they are purebloods from good families. Even if her family is neutral, not dark. They knew that I wasn't like them for years, but as long as I keep up appearances, while I'm biding my time to be able to actually do something, they won't screw me over. Hence why I directly offered my grandfather that I was willing to accept a marriage contract for me, as long as it was Rose they made the second party. And the contract is very lenient. Not at all what they tried to pressure Andromeda into, which made her flee and elope with Theodore Tonks," Sirius explained.

That scandal was still very prominent in the minds of his family, probably why they had caved in quicker than they would normally have done anyway. He, as heir to the family, could have given them much more embarrassing press than Andromeda already caused.

"I'm just glad that my family doesn't hold to the pureblood customs that strictly. Mum and Dad just want me to find a nice girl that I can love, no matter which blood status she has. Which means, once I finally convince Lily that I'm the one for her, I can marry her," James exclaimed happily.

"I wish you luck with that. You have a steep road ahead of you with that one," Sirius commented.

"My love for her will persevere in the end," James declared.

Sirius just shook his head. He didn't think that James had actually experienced love for a girl yet. Sure, he had a crush a mile wide for Lily Evans, but in his eyes it was just obsession and infatuation. Until you really got to know a girl, you couldn't truly say you loved her. And James hadn't really taken the time to learn more about Lily as a person. And Lily wouldn't give him a chance to do just that until he changed his ways. Perhaps he had a better chance, now that she had broken her friendship with Snape.

While Sirius didn't like Snape, he had stopped hexing him whenever the chance arose after his revelation. He simply ignored him in class or if they met in the corridors. He didn't have anything against him personally, just against the company he kept. Many of them were what he knew would turn into Death Eaters at the slightest chance. And those he truly despised for what they did. Being cunning and ambitious he could live with. But murdering and torturing people was totally out of line and couldn't be justified by any argument of pureblood supremacy.

* * *

Rose and Sirius' betrothal was officially announced in the Daily Prophet a week after the contract was signed. They got a congratulation letter from the Minister, as both families were political power horses, and besides that nothing much changed for them. Rose had to go through a talk with her mother about the duties of a wife, Sirius was taught more about caring for a family by his grandfather, as Orion knew too well that his son didn't really respect him enough to listen to his advice, he had burned that bridge years ago, and both appeared as an official couple at the ministry's summer ball. They were also informed about rituals that were performed when the marriage was officially sealed and how much additional power a couple won if they consummated their marriage on their wedding day while still both being pure.

There were good reasons why, even if there were a lot of broom cupboards that students frequently used for making out sessions out of sight, no student had ever become pregnant at the school in all of its history. There were wards that prevented that the students could have sex with each other. A very necessary precaution when you dealt with hormonal teenagers. The old families had insisted that those wards were established before they sent their children to be educated at Hogwarts. They didn't want them weakened before they could get that valued boost. There were good reasons why most wizards and witches married young, shortly out of school. They felt the desire to finally have sex strongly and the marriage ritual also eased the way into accepting their new spouse, which was why marriage contracts were still used.

The two could meet again without supervision in their free time as well, which they used to explore magical and muggle places. They never told their families about the muggle places, just the magical ones, like a tour to Stonehenge or the magical collection of the Tower of London. But they also went to muggle theatres to see movies, which was great, as they enjoyed cuddling up in the dark rooms and sharing popcorn and other sweets or visited muggle museums. They even went to a muggle club one evening for dancing, after having put on accessories that Sirius had placed a runic confundus charm onto. Rose had a bracelet with blue and white pearls that had the runes and Sirius wore a necklace with an onyx pendent in form of a dragon. It made the muggles think that they were already eighteen and allowed to enter the club.

They had a lot of fun and were looking forward to the day when they would marry. For both of them their contract was a good thing. No matter that they were sure that others would give them grief over it.

* * *

 **That's it for this week, the next chapter will be posted next week. Until then.**


	2. Crisis

**Thanks to everybody that left a review and put the story on his favourites list. I'm quite happy about the response, as stories outside of the original HP timeline aren't always easy to write. Now enjoy chapter two.**

* * *

 **Crisis**

Sirius tried to not panic. Wormtail was an idiot. A total, brainless idiot. How could he do something this stupid? Did he want to get Moony killed? Why in the nine circles of hell did he have to tell Snape of all people how to open the entrance under the willow? He had to stop it. Otherwise, if Snape saw Moony, he would raise a stink. Worse, if Moony acted on his instincts, being already transformed, he would bite Snape or even kill him. And then he would be executed. The Ministry knew no mercy with werewolves that had turned or killed somebody.

He turned into Padfoot, grateful that he had done the smart thing after his OWLs and registered his animagus form. He had realised that not doing so could harm him and Rose, as he had plans to become successful in the future. He had to think of his future bride next to himself now and he wouldn't cause her to live in shame, just because somebody figured out his secret. And not registering an animagus form had a sentence of three years at Azkaban. Too much, as he thought, but the law was the law. Now nobody could comment in him racing through the corridors, in full sight of a number of students that were on their way back to their common rooms. If anybody reported it, he could get out of trouble. And his dog form was way faster than he was on foot. He had to stop Snape and prevent that he found out about Moony. He only barely registered the shrieks of some of the Divination-taking students about a Grimm. If the situation wasn't as serious as it was, he would have laughed about the unintentional prank.

He finally reached the large front doors and shot outside, towards the Whomping Willow. Good. Now he needed to find Snape. He doubted that he could sneak out of the Slytherin common room after curfew. He knew from Regulus that Slughorn had wards on the door that told him if any student left after curfew had started, but not if one came back late. A bit strange, but not his problem. He watched in horror when he saw the willow going still in front of him. Damn, he was already there. He sped on and saw Snape climbing into the tunnel under the tree.

He had a look upwards. The moon was out already. No wonder, it was March. The days were only just beginning to become longer again. Sirius raced forward and jumped into the tunnel at full speed. He actually hit Snape in the back and made him fall to the ground.

"Ow," Snape brought out.

Sirius used his temporary distraction and disorientation to transform back to his human form and to stun Snape in the back. No time for explanations and Snape was probably not inclined to listen to him anyway. Better to avoid the hassle. He sighed in relief. That had been too close. Had he gone down the tunnel, he would have met Moony fully transformed. And he doubted that Snape was an animagus like him, which would protect him from being turned if he was bitten.

After taking a minute to calm his racing heart down again, Sirius reached up to still the, by now awake, willow again, by pressing the knot on the bark, and levitated Snape out of the tunnel. He would take him to the hospital wing and leave him under Madam Pomfrey's care. He doubted that Snape had seen his face, though he might have seen his dog form. Well, good thing he was registered then. He sighed. He would really have to read Wormtail the riot act. How could he think that this was a good idea?

* * *

Madam Pomfrey at first thought that Snape had got into another fight with the Marauders when Sirius brought him into the hospital wing, stunned, but otherwise unharmed. Then Sirius started talking and her eyes widened in horror.

"You mean to tell me that he was stupid enough to go into that tunnel on the day of the full moon?" She asked horrified.

"Yes, it seems he was suspicious of where Remus went each month, and he seemingly bothered Peter enough that he told him. I will confront Peter about this, as it's just been coincidence that I overheard that Snape was going down there in time to stop him getting farther than the entrance to the tunnel," Sirius confirmed.

"Sweet Merlin, you definitely prevented a catastrophe, Mr Black," Pomfrey stated.

"I didn't want that Remus was executed, should this idiot find him and be bitten or worse, killed," Sirius declared, "I know how the Ministry reacts to cases like this one."

"So you know," She commented.

"We all do. It was clear after a few months of Remus always disappearing at the same time of the month. But we don't mind. He's our friend and he didn't have any control over this," Sirius stated.

"Very mature, Mr Black," They heard the voice of Professor Dumbledore behind them and turned around.

"Professor Dumbledore, what are you doing here, sir?" Sirius asked.

"The portraits saw you sprinting through the corridors and informed me that something had to be wrong. When you brought back Mr Snape, I decided that it would be a good idea to come here and see what was going on. Now we need to find a way to prevent that it could happen again. First take thirty points for Gryffindor for acting immediately and preventing a very dangerous situation for both your friend Mr Lupin and Mr Snape," Dumbledore informed Sirius.

"Thank you, sir. Can you do anything to prevent that he tries again? Remus doesn't want any trouble. He's too happy that you allowed him to come to school, despite his condition," Sirius replied, knowing that Dumbledore had his own agenda behind that, but he shouldn't be confrontational with him. That didn't have any advantages for him.

"I will take care of that, Mr Black, you have my word. How far did he go into the tunnel?" Dumbledore asked.

"I stopped him right after he entered. He didn't see anything," Sirius answered, "But I fear he might have put the clues together."

"Hm, I will have to speak to Professor Slughorn to keep a closer eye on Mr Snape then. And see how much he knows so far. By the way, would you mind showing me that dog animagus form of yours, Mr Black? As a Transfiguration Master, I naturally am always interested if a student at Hogwarts manages this masterpiece of my subject," Dumbledore asked with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Sure, sir," Sirius nodded and stepped back a little and immediately turned into Padfoot, wagging his tail happily.

"Incredible. Immediate transformation. That's really advanced Transfiguration," Dumbledore stated impressed, "And that at your age. I guess the high praise my colleagues from the Wizarding Examination Committee heaped on you over your OWLs was very deserved."

Sirius transformed back and smiled.

"Thank you, Professor," Sirius replied.

"You did take care of registering?" Dumbledore asked.

"Of course I did. As soon as I had mastered the transformation, I went to the Ministry and registered it. I really have no desire to end up at Azkaban for three years. Even if I think that the penalty for just not registering is too harsh. A large fine would be better," Sirius commented.

"Well, an unregistered animagus can cause a lot of damage, which is why the Ministry decided upon that punishment," Dumbledore pointed out.

"A wizard that learns the _bombarda_ charm can also cause a lot of damage, but you don't have automatic registry duties for those that do. Many spells can cause much more harm than an unnoticed and unregistered animagus. Still they aren't forbidden or controlled. It's just that bureaucrats that don't have the skill and determination to work on this long-time until they get it right dislike those that did put in the work and want to have a measure of control over them," Sirius shook his head.

"You seemingly have thought about it a lot, Mr Black," Dumbledore commented.

"Wouldn't you if you were in my position? I mean, we are at war with a very dark wizard that doesn't care about the lives of others one iota. I had thought about keeping my achievement a secret, at least until the war was over. Simply to have it as an ace up my sleeve in case I was trapped. But after my betrothal, I decided that I needed to think of my future first and foremost and went to register. I couldn't, in good conscience, put my betrothed through the hurt that would come if I was caught and sentenced to Azkaban, just for wanting a little safety for myself, even if it was tempting," Sirius pointed out.

Dumbledore only nodded. He knew of the betrothal contract between Sirius and Primrose of course. He didn't comment on it though.

"Yes, that would be a good reason to not risk it. From what I've seen your and Miss Princeton's relationship is a very happy one," He twinkled at Sirius.

"It is and I'm really happy that I could choose my future bride without any complaints from my father and grandfather," Sirius nodded.

"Well, I suggest you run along and get back to Gryffindor Tower. Oh, and take fifty more points for achieving the animagus transformation at your young age. It is after all a very difficult skill to learn and way past NEWT level," Dumbledore chuckled.

"Thank you, sir, and goodnight."

Sirius left the hospital wing. He only hoped that nothing bad for Moony would come out of this. And he needed to tell Prongs and Wormtail to register as well. Dumbledore would draw the right conclusions and it could come to bite them in the end if they didn't. Right now nobody would wonder if they registered at the end of the year, as they would assume that their group had managed to do it one after the other. And a bit of leeway was given until you had to register. Like getting the school year done before taking care of it during the summer break.

* * *

James was as unhappy about what Peter had done as Sirius had been. He knew too well from his father how werewolves that bit somebody were treated. Wormtail's attempts to say it was just meant as a prank and that he didn't really think that Snape would be stupid enough to go down to the willow, if he suspected what was going on with Remus, didn't placate the two others in any way. Peter was in the proverbial doghouse with the group for the next two months, as none of them wanted that anything happened to Remus. Remus meanwhile was really grateful that Sirius had knocked Snape out before anything could happen. He was horrified at the thought that he could have bitten anybody. He never wanted to do that.

It also served as a very strong reminder of what was a prank and what wasn't. The Marauders, once Peter had sworn to never do anything like that again, didn't play any bad pranks against the school for the rest of the year. Just harmless ones to lighten up the mood, as nearly every day a new black letter from the Ministry of Magic arrived now, telling the unlucky recipient that a family member had died in the war against Voldemort. It was really becoming very bad outside of the school. Right now the only safe place was Hogwarts, as Voldemort feared going up against Dumbledore for some reason.

Rose didn't know about Remus' condition yet, as Sirius had told her that it was Remus' decision to tell anybody, when she had asked him what was going on. She had accepted that, as she could understand that you sometimes had to respect the wishes of other people of what was known about them and what wasn't.

* * *

Sirius didn't know it, but his actions in the matter had made Dumbledore notice him more. Something he really didn't want, as he didn't trust the old man fully. Sure, he stood against Voldemort, but his policies didn't match what Sirius thought should be done. Stagnation didn't help their world. And condemning everything dark was highly counterproductive. People wouldn't let others dictate that their old traditions weren't accepted anymore. Not when they had never harmed anybody, which was an argument that was hard to deny.

Thus, when, after their seventh year at Hogwarts, which had actually seen James and Lily dating and falling in love, which he had not believed would happen, Dumbledore approached their group if they wanted to join his Order of the Phoenix to fight against Voldemort, he declined, contrary to his friends. He stated that he wanted to stay more neutral and not openly fight against other witches and wizards. He wanted to work against the Death Eaters using other methods, by giving their targets better protection and working on changing perception of those that supported the dark cause financially. Dumbledore didn't like it and Sirius and James had a row over his decision, but in the end, James gave in, knowing that for Sirius it was much harder to fight, as a good number of his family members were supporting Voldemort.

And Sirius started an apprenticeship in Warding under Escalon Greengrass, who owned the only warding business in Great Britain that could compete with the goblins. Runes had continued to be his passion and he wanted to work in a field where he could constantly use them. He breezed through the things Escalon, who quickly realised his great talent, could teach him and managed to finish his mastery in Warding in record time of three years. Rose had gone and started studying Potions to become a Potions Mistress. With a side mastery in Herbology. The subjects were connected after all and she didn't see any reason to limit herself. Not to mention that Professor Slughorn had pulled some strings for her, which allowed her the dual study load under one highly respected master of both subjects.

While their marriage had taken place the month after their graduation from Hogwarts, both had agreed that they first wanted to establish their careers before thinking about having children, even if Sirius' mother ranted about their duty to the Blacks to produce an heir. Sirius' father Orion had died from poisoning a year after their wedding, which made Walburga even more unbearable. One more reason to only visit the family when it was absolutely unavoidable.

* * *

It was the summer of 1981 and James and Lily's first child, his godson Harry, was celebrating his first birthday. Things had really gone downhill since their graduation from Hogwarts. Voldemort was taking over and they all feared that it was only a question of time until he managed to overthrow the Minister. James and Lily, as members of the Order of the Phoenix, had become high priority targets of Voldemort. They had to go into hiding, especially as they had a baby to take care of. Sirius had also become a target, but for other reasons. He still refused to join the Death Eaters and his grandfather refused to disown him, which his mother demanded over and over again. After all, he also didn't listen to her about the need to soon produce an heir.

Thankfully Arcturus Black was more pragmatic than Walburga Black. He knew that, after Regulus had disappeared a few months ago, Sirius was the only one left that could continue the Black line and disinheriting him over his refusal to support a dark lord wouldn't stand in front of the Ministry at all. Not to mention that Arcturus had by now got doubts about the validity of the goals that Voldemort supported. Too many purebloods had been killed. Many of them that Arcturus knew were actually quite pro-pureblood, just against Voldemort and his methods.

While the main targets were muggleborns and some halfbloods, next to basically making a sport out of muggle hunting, they weren't numerous enough to actually take the loss of that much magical blood.

Sirius and Rose currently sat in the Potters' lounge, watching Harry play with his presents. The one-year-old boy happily babbled about the stuffed animals he had got. Sirius had also got him a toy broom, it could only fly about a few inches above the ground, but Harry certainly loved it already. Lily not so much, as she had worried about him hitting something.

"How are you holding up, Prongs?" Sirius asked.

"Some days better than others, Padfoot. The worst part is the constant hiding. If I could go out and actually do something, it would be easier, but I can't risk that with Harry involved. I need to protect him," James answered.

"Have you thought about my offer? I can ward you a place so tightly that nobody can get closer than a mile without you knowing. And they will have a damn hard time getting through my wards," Sirius repeated an offer he had made twice already.

"I just don't know. It has certain benefits, but no ward is infallible," James replied, less reluctant than the previous times that Sirius had asked though.

"Well, you could put up the wards and add the fidelius charm," Rose suggested, which made all adults turn to her, "It's an ancient charm, which has mostly been forgotten. I only know about it, as I read all the books in the private library that we have up in Ravenclaw Tower by the time I graduated. The charm allows you to hide a secret in the soul of a living person. That person is called the secret keeper. For example, if you hid the location of your home with the fidelius charm, only the secret keeper could tell anybody where you were hiding. Nobody else would be able to find you there. They could look directly through your kitchen window while you eat dinner, and they wouldn't see you."

"That sounds like a perfect solution," Lily pondered, "It would take a large part of the worry from us, as our previous hiding places have somehow been discovered several times now. We fear that there is a spy somewhere around us, but so far we couldn't determine who has betrayed us."

"Yeah, we only know that it can't be you two, as you didn't know about half of our hideouts that were found out," James added, "I don't want to distrust others in the Order, but there are by now too many that died after having been found by the Death Eaters, even if they were careful to not tell outsiders where they were hiding."

"That's really bad. Didn't Professor Dumbledore take precautions against a traitor in the ranks?" Rose asked shocked.

"Not enough, I think by now. After the first deaths, I would have decided to question everybody under veritaserum to rat the traitor out," Lily stated, "And I can easily brew it, if given the ingredients and time to get it ready. But my suggestion was brushed off, Professor Dumbledore saying that we needed to trust each other, or Voldemort would have won already. Not to mention that the Ministry strictly controls the use of veritaserum. If anybody took offence and tattled, we would have a lot more problems than we already do."

It was clear that she was frustrated by that.

"I'm just glad that I didn't join then. If such a logical solution is refused, I'm better off doing my own thing," Sirius commented.

And Sirius was successful in his work. His wards had prevented a number of deaths already. He could make them too strong for the common Death Eaters to get through. Escalon was very happy about that fact and he paid Sirius a lot of gold to keep working for him. Greengrass Enterprises was drowning in warding requests for private homes all over England, Scotland and Ireland. After some of the survivors had declared that it were just the wards that let them escape with their lives, and mostly even fully protected their property from being overly damaged, others had caught on and wanted that protection as well. Sirius was working overtime every day and was glad that he had been able to take the day off to celebrate his godson's birthday.

Rose was equally busy, as her owl order potions service was in high demand. Many people appreciated being able to order the potions they needed without having to go out into the open. It added safety for them. Fear was a common companion these days. And Sirius had given all of her owls vests with runic arrays for basic wards on them to prevent interception of her deliveries.

"If we are doing it, which property should we choose?" Lily asked.

"None of the known ones and none that have been frequented by many people," Rose advised, "While they would have forgotten the location, they would remember that a specific place had once been known to them, but now they couldn't remember anything about it. Best would be some house out of the way, which nobody knows about."

"Hm, we have the old grounds of Potter's Keep," James pondered, "Ever since the Keep itself was raised to the ground in 1942, when a muggle bomb hit it, the place was abandoned by the Potter family. With magic, it wouldn't take longer than two weeks to set up a small house to live in. There are no other people living around, as the ones living closest still were about ten kilometres away. And the ones that survived the bombing moved elsewhere long ago."

"Sounds perfect for your needs. Much better than staying here at Godric's Hollow. While the house is nice, it also is too much of a risk of people finding you here. Best would be to not have any floo access and only apparate to the new location over several stations for safety," Sirius commented.

"Good idea. I could stay in contact with the outside while Lily stays with Harry and continues her studies for her Potions and Charms masteries. Due to the constant need to move, she pushed it back, but if we have a safe place, she could start again," James warmed up more and more to the idea.

"Who would we choose as secret keeper? I think we shouldn't take anybody in the Order. We don't know the identity of the spy after all," Lily asked.

"Padfoot, would you do it?" James asked, "I know you would never rat me out."

"I think I would be too obvious, Prongs," Sirius shook his head, "Rose, does the charm require that it is somebody that doesn't live inside the house?"

"Not that I know of. It would actually make more sense if James or Lily themselves were the secret keeper. There couldn't be more protection than the secret keeper actually living under the charm," Rose pondered.

"If it's possible, I will do it myself," Lily stated, "As I don't leave the house too much anyway, as I need to think about Harry, I wouldn't be as much at risk to be found and forced to give up the information. And I would die before I let anybody harm my baby!"

James nodded along with that. His son was his most precious person, followed by his wife. He would do anything to protect him.

* * *

Thanks to the high amount of stone lying around on the grounds of the former Potter's Keep, James and Sirius didn't have any trouble building a nice two-storey house from scratch. As Sirius decided that carving the basic runes for the future wards into the stones before the house was built, simply to avoid being noticed buying the number of crystals that a house this size would normally need, would be the way to go, it had an interesting effect, which, when he told Escalon Greengrass about it, led to him getting a large bonus for discovering a new method of imbuing the very structure of a house with wards, which would earn the company a fortune.

Escalon's brother had a building company after all, and so far they had just set up wards with warding crystals once the houses were done. Thanks to Sirius' discovery, Escalon expanded the method of putting the carved stones into the walls by adding tiny crystals into the mix as well. With both carved crystals and stones, the wards surpassed anything in power that had ever been known to wizards all over the world.

James and Lily could move into the fully furnished house after three weeks of building it from scratch. Sirius cast the fidelius charm on them, giving Lily the secret of their new, safe, hiding place. The Potters were very relieved when, after a month of living there, nobody had even come close to their new home. And for some reason the fidelius charm's reach was expanding a little every day as well. They chalked it off to the other, powerful wards present. It wasn't something that bothered them at all.

It allowed them to let Harry play outside when the weather was nice after all, and Rose and Lily got their husbands to build a sandbox for Harry one weekend, which both wizards took to with eagerness. While they were busy with that, their wives played with the setup of the small gardens. At least they weren't stuck inside the house all the time now. It certainly made things a bit easier on the Potters. And Lily only told the secret of their new home to Sirius, Rose and James. Nobody else needed to know.

When Dumbledore asked to be given the secret, simply to be able to reach them in case of an emergency, James refused to let anybody know, as he didn't want his son to be put in danger. And they were sure that there was a spy somewhere around them. As long as that spy wasn't caught, the new home of the Potters would stay a secret from everybody inside the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore argued with James for a long time, but he wasn't even willing to tell anybody who his secret keeper was, after all, a secret spoken was a secret broken. And it wouldn't make any sense to make the secret keeper a primary target, if the spy reported his or her identity to Voldemort. Dumbledore didn't manage to convince James otherwise.

James instead gave him a new set of enchanted mirrors, his original one that he had used with Sirius was still safely on his person at all times for emergency reasons, or if he just wanted to talk to his best friend. James agreed to call Dumbledore on the mirror once a week, simply to confirm that he and his family were still safe. Dumbledore didn't like being limited in that way, but had to grudgingly agree. Alastor Moody meanwhile praised James for practicing 'Constant Vigilance'. He was fully in favour of keeping the location a secret.

* * *

Sirius was honestly annoyed by now. Ever since the Potters had gone under the fidelius charm, he had been hunted down by Death Eaters. Clearly they believed that he was the secret keeper. That anybody even knew that there was a fidelius charm at work, only proved again that he had been right in not joining the Order. That group had so many leaks that it wasn't funny anymore. And he wasn't about to let those bastards ruin his life. Therefore, the DMLE was very surprised when beaten up Death Eaters started appearing in their holding cells. All with a signed letter from Sirius Black that he would like their bounties to be placed into his vault at Gringotts.

In March 1980 the Ministry had given up on trying to solve the problem on their own and had offered bounties on any caught Death Eater, dead or alive. Each grunt was worth about one thousand galleons and any inner circle member five thousand galleons, with Voldemort himself earning you twenty thousand. It had helped in gaining the Ministry a small relief, during which they increased their hiring of new aurors and hit wizards, but Voldemort had got the best bounty hunters to look elsewhere, which was fairly simple by offering them more money, if they hit the targets he wanted gone. They were mercenaries after all. After the initial success of the method, only the idiots were sent to the Ministry anymore.

Sirius meanwhile saw the offer as a good way to get rid of the Death Eaters he disabled. He couldn't keep them locked up anywhere after all. He didn't want to be responsible for them. And he didn't want to kill them either. Thus, after milking them for all the information they could get them, he sent them on. Rose had a ready supply of veritaserum at their house, perks of being close to gaining her mastery in Potions, she would probably need one more year for the development of her own potions, which was a requirement for a mastery in the subject, as she had already covered the step of having to brew a number of highly difficult potions from memory for the first test. She had passed with flying colours as well.

While the sending off of the Death Eaters earned him a nice little side income, he would rather have his peace. He knew that he needed to find out who the spy in the Order was, but that was difficult without being part of it. And he never wanted to be that. Dumbledore was inefficient as a war leader and his methods horribly flawed. Honestly, stunners in a battle to the death? You didn't have to kill your opponent, but permanently disabling him to prevent that anybody else revived the ones you took down was only the smart thing to do.

When he arrived at home, Rose greeted him with a kiss.

"And, how was your meeting with Crouch?" She asked, knowing that Sirius had been asked to come to the DMLE to give reports about the high number of bounties he collected.

"Not too bad, love, he was a bit peeved that I had so much more success at catching Death Eaters than his aurors, but when I told him that they were always ambushing me and I was only passing them on after dealing with their attack, he was easier to handle. I think he's too happy to have some Death Eaters he can have convicted than not being able to show success. The best catch was my dear cousin in law. That idiot Rodolphus honestly thought he could take me on," Sirius answered, shaking his head.

"Honestly? It's well-known that you are an excellent duellist and he was barely acceptable in Charms and Transfiguration at Hogwarts. Everybody knew that. While he might have learned more dark arts in the meantime, he was never creative in a fight. I really have no idea what your cousin saw in him," Rose commented.

"She's as crazy as him, but sadly much better in a duel than him. If I had to fight her, it would be really hard. I think I could take her on and win if she was on her own, but in a group, she would probably force me to flee. At least I can break through any kind of anti-escape ward easily, thanks to my training," Sirius pointed out.

"And I'm very grateful for that. I don't want you to die. I love you and I don't intend to lose you to those bigots," Rose told him, snuggling into his embrace.

"The same is true concerning you. You can't imagine how relieved I am that you can do your studies on potions from here most of the time. At least I can trust the wards I set up here. Especially since I remodelled a few walls with the new ward scheme," Sirius admitted.

"And I feel safe here. Come on, let's not think about attacks all the time, it will only spoil our appetites. And I made one of your favourite dishes today," Rose told him, trying to change the topic.

"Oh, which one?" Sirius asked curiously.

"Goulash with potato dumplings," She answered.

"That sounds wonderful," He agreed and kissed her again.

* * *

 **Okay, one more chapter to go, then this story is finished. Until next weekend.**


	3. End of the War

**Hi everybody, thanks for all your reviews and favouring this short story. This is the last chapter, enjoy.**

* * *

 **End of the War**

It was Halloween and Sirius was currently watching how his best friend played with his son. Lily and James had invited him and Rose to visit for Halloween. They all had decided to forego costumes, as they wouldn't be able to go out for trick or treating in any way. And Harry was a bit young for it anyway, if it would have been safe for him to go. In a few years though. They had eaten some Halloween themed dinner, which Lily and Rose had prepared, while James and Sirius had watched the baby.

At nine Lily took Harry upstairs to his room, as it was high time for him to go to sleep. The other three adults sat on the couches when the two-way mirror that James had left with Dumbledore went off.

"What could he want?" Rose asked.

"No idea, but you two better stay out of sight. I don't want him to know that you have been given the secret to this place," James told them and Sirius and Rose nodded, going into the kitchen, from where they could hear everything that was spoken on the mirror.

"Professor Dumbledore?" James replied to the mirror.

"James. Thank goodness you are alright," The old wizard exclaimed in relief.

"Yes, nothing happened over here, why? Did anything happen elsewhere?" James asked concerned.

"Sadly yes. James, Voldemort found Alice and Frank. He killed them both before he tried to kill Neville. But somehow he couldn't kill Neville and the boy survived, while there isn't any trace of Voldemort so far. I haven't got over there yet, but, as you and Lily were the second couple the prophecy could have meant, I needed to make sure that you hadn't been targeted by a second group," Dumbledore reported.

"Oh no, what condition is Neville in?" James asked worried.

"I don't know yet. Augusta and Richard reacted to the alarm that Alice and Frank set up and took the baby to St. Mungo's. Augusta wasn't willing to speak to me, she's horribly distraught over the death of Frank and Alice," Dumbledore answered.

"Now I'm all the more relieved that nobody knows where we are," James stated, "That could easily have been us. Didn't Alice and Frank go under the fidelius as well?"

"They did, but the attack happened after their secret keeper went missing two days ago. We were searching for Dorcas, but we couldn't find her," Dumbledore said gravely, "I fear she was caught and forced to tell the secret."

"And that is exactly the reason why I refused to tell anybody who our secret keeper was, Professor. This could easily have been us and Harry," James stated.

"Hindsight is a horrible thing, James. Please stay at home and don't leave. We don't know if there are other groups that will try and go after the other child that the prophecy could have meant. Currently all signs point at Voldemort at least being temporarily gone, but we can't be sure. It might be one of his tricks to give us a false sense of security. I will keep you informed," Dumbledore promised.

"Thank you, Professor," James said and the mirror went back to reflecting his face, "You heard it?"

"Every word. Damn, what prophecy was he talking about?" Rose asked, shocked at the news of the death of the Longbottom couple.

"Sybil Trelawney, the new Divination teacher that Professor Dumbledore hired, made a prophecy about the downfall of You-Know-Who when he held her job interview at the Hog's Head. A Death Eater overheard part of it and told You-Know-Who. I wasn't told the exact wording, as Professor Dumbledore didn't want to risk the whole prophecy getting into You-Know-Who's hands. It tells that a child born as the seventh month dies, to parents that thrice defied him was coming. The child would be the only one that could defeat You-Know-Who. Of course that threat made him decide that he had to eliminate it, which meant that those that could be involved had to go into hiding. I can't tell you how relieved I am that he didn't choose my son. No matter how much it hurts to know that Frank and Alice are dead. I can't help myself but wanting to be selfish and happy that it wasn't my family," James admitted.

"That' understandable, Prongs. It is a tragedy, especially for little Neville. But I agree that I'm too happy that it wasn't you that died to really feel the full brunt of grief," Sirius nodded.

When Lily came down and saw the grave faces of the others, she immediately asked: "What happened?"

James told her what Dumbledore had told him and she had to sit down, shaking in both grief for her close friend Alice, worry about her godson Neville and guilty relief that her baby was now safe, not chosen by the monster for the prophecy. James took her into his arms, knowing too well how she felt and that she needed some reassurance. Not that he didn't feel the same.

"What are we going to do now?" Lily asked after calming down a bit.

"Stay under the fidelius charm for at least another six months and refuse to give up the identity of your secret keeper. Before you can risk anything, wait until the Ministry has rounded up enough of the Death Eaters to not have them attack you. It is known that you two are members of the Order of the Phoenix, which means some idiots could think that you know more about what happened to their master. While you are a little out of contact with people, it's not as if you are forced to constantly stay inside the house anymore, as the fidelius reach has expanded a good deal since the beginning," Rose advised, "Most people will be too relieved that You-Know-Who is gone to really think about his followers still being out there. And until they are captured, it won't be safe for you and Harry to come out of hiding. James can go and find out what's going on from time to time."

"That's true. In your position I would also actually consider staying here at Potter's Keep for longer. The place is out of reach from anybody and I can tell that the next three years at least will bring a lot of changes and fights with Death Eaters that will try to escape persecution. And we don't know all their identities yet. Go shopping mostly in the muggle world, except for things like potion ingredients and spell books," Sirius added to his wife's advice.

"We will in any case stay under the wards for the next six months. What we do after that, we can discuss when the time has come," Lily decided, "But I wish we had some more people around here. It gets a bit lonely. I mean, we haven't even seen Moony or Wormy for a while, except for Order meetings."

"We can deal with that until it is safe again. We still have no idea about the identity of the spy," James sighed.

"Have you thought about checking for the dark mark?" Sirius asked, "I mean, all the idiots that ambushed me and which I sent to the DMLE for trials, had it on their left forearm."

"No. Why didn't we take such a basic precaution?" James cursed.

"I didn't even know about them having it on their arms. Professor Dumbledore certainly never mentioned it during the meetings," Lily agreed, annoyed as well.

"He has to be a lousy general," Rose commented, "I mean, it was one of the first things Siri told me after he found out. And I know that he also informed Barty Crouch, simply to have a full check of all Ministry employees done to not have the spies continue their work."

"The more I learn about how simple things weren't done in this war, the more I'm convinced that not accepting the invitation into the Order was a great idea. I mean, really? Why not do something that simple? It wouldn't be illegal and not an invasion of privacy, which was the constant argument against veritaserum being used," Sirius shook his head in disbelief.

James and Lily didn't look happy either. They fully agreed with their friends. Had that just been done, Frank and Alice would probably still be alive and who knew what had happened to Dorcas.

* * *

Dumbledore was miffed that James and Lily still refused to tell anybody the identity of their secret keeper or have him or her pass on the secret of their hiding place. They argued that had Frank and Alice just done the same, they would still be alive and Neville wouldn't be an orphan. It was hard to argue with that, especially as he had convinced the couple to go with a secret keeper among the Order members. They by now knew, thanks to the goblins informing the beneficiaries of her last will, that she had been killed after the secret had been extracted from her. And, sadly, that wasn't too difficult. Veritaserum or legilimency could do it.

The general public was celebrating the fall of the dark lord and praised the Boy-Who-Lived, Neville Longbottom, for freeing them. He didn't have any access to see Neville, to check what had happened, as Augusta and Richard isolated their grandchild from anybody and had locked down their manor for anybody that wasn't keyed into the wards. And that list was very short. He was frustrated by that, as he was used to being listened to, both as headmaster and a politician. People respected his opinion and generally followed his advice. But the Longbottoms were stubborn and, as much as he wanted to have Neville raised by people that supported his agenda, or even better, far away from the fame that was heaped on his little shoulders, he wasn't in any position to make that decision.

Two people had that influence. Neville's godparents. But Lily Potter had already had a talk with Augusta Longbottom, after asking to see her godson to make sure he was alright after the horrible event, and had agreed to let Neville's grandparents raise him, as long as she could come to visit whenever she wanted to. Augusta had agreed to that stipulation, knowing that magical godparents automatically got first rights to raising a child. Neville's godfather was Fabian Prewett, but he had died in the war, leaving his brother an emotional wreck for a while, as Fabian, with his last power, turned a stick into a portkey when they were ambushed and horribly outnumbered and threw it at his brother, sending him away before two killing curses could hit Gideon.

Gideon had arrived at St. Mungo's with severe injuries, but the healers had saved his life. The worst part was his state of mind, blaming himself for not being strong enough to also save Fabian. No matter how badly he had been injured. It would take lots of time to let him deal with that loss. His sister, Molly Weasley, had taken to regularly set him up as a babysitter for her children, as, with seven of them, she was glad for every hand and additional pair of eyes she could get. It helped him to distract himself for a few hours each day, which was good, according to the healers. And the innocence of the children worked wonders not thinking about the horrors of the war.

Which meant, for his trouble of having some influence in how Neville would be raised, he didn't have much to work with now. Lily was stubborn, James supported her in being stubborn, and he would bet that Sirius Black was somehow involved in that stance as well. He had once thought that he could influence the highly talented wizard to his way of thinking, but Sirius Black was a wild card. While he had thankfully never joined Voldemort, he shuddered thinking what he could have done with such a talented follower in his ranks, he also absolutely refused to follow Dumbledore and join his Order. Instead, Sirius had managed to win favours with Barty Crouch, simply for handing the caught Death Eaters over for them to try.

And Barty didn't mind the state the prisoners were in when they arrived at all. As long as he had some Death Eaters that he could convict and show his stance against the Dark Arts, he was content. And they hadn't won the war yet. Only Voldemort was gone for now after all, not his followers and many of them were nearly as dangerous as Voldemort had been.

* * *

Sirius waited outside the room in which the test of his wife was taking place. Rose had finally got the appointment for her dual mastery exams after having studied under her master for five years. The time after the fall of Voldemort had been an up and down of news. Good, many people broke out of being controlled by the imperius curse. Bad, the extreme followers of Voldemort were out to find out what had happened to their master and had gone after Crouch, with his son opening them the path into the house, inviting them inside. Nobody had suspected that Barty Crouch junior was a Death Eater, but he had been a fanatic.

The older Crouch had been tortured to insanity by the Death Eaters, which were convinced that he, as head of the DMLE, had to know where their master was now. The new head, Alastor Moody, even while being a member of the Order of the Phoenix, continued cleaning house. He took no nonsense, ignored polite customs, and set up a fool proof system to rat out the undetected spies at the Ministry. He found five the first day alone. He took to Sirius' way of forcing them to show their lower arms, where the dark mark was located. Anybody carrying it was stunned, bound and sent to the holding cells.

Moody was very much a believer in first securing your immediate back before going after the enemy that sent the public into a panic. Constant Vigilance! Sirius actually liked that attitude, even if Moody sometimes drifted into paranoia. Then again, it wasn't paranoia if they were really out to get you. And contrary to Crouch, who wanted the top job, Moody was perfectly content where he was, catching all the bastards that had supported Voldemort. Once caught, Moody dosed every Death Eater with veritaserum, no exception. He told everybody that protested his methods that they had allowed that the aurors used the unforgivable curses against Death Eaters, therefore letting him use some truth potion really wasn't as if they would sell their souls. They had already done that with the previous rights that aurors had been given.

Nobody liked it, especially the top politicians, but it worked. He found the spies. He got more names and sent the aurors after them, not bothering to get warrants for each of them individually. He got one that allowed him to bring in anybody named as a Death Eater in interrogations of those found with the dark mark and those strongly suspected of being Death Eaters by previous investigations. It was the reason why Lucius Malfoy now sat in a holding cell, not understanding why his plot with bribing Minister Bagnold and some high-ranking Wizengamot members had failed like that. Bribery had always opened doors for him before. Well, too bad for him that Moody wasn't buyable.

Now that things were safer, a lot of tests for mastery exams that had been postponed were done. The guilds felt safe enough again, as Voldemort had targeted a number of their best members, which he considered a threat to his plans, if they didn't agree to support him. But as masters they knew a lot of tricks to not be caught and except for a few unfortunate ones that got into raids that didn't target them directly and were surprised, they all got through the war fairly well. Had it lasted longer, it might be a different story, but especially the new warding system, offered by Greengrass Enterprises, prevented a lot of attacks from being successful. And if anybody could afford them, it were masters of any subject. They were wanted by companies for their skills, as it took a lot of skill and intelligence to achieve a mastery in a subject. Sirius' three years of finishing his Warding mastery was unseen before. Rose's five years were already a short time in a normal mastery study, but for two subjects at once, it was also without many precedencies.

There had been two others over the last four hundred years that could say the same. One witch from Norway in 1841 that managed to get her masteries in Ancient Runes and Enchanting in that period and one wizard from Italy that got his masteries in Arithmancy and Charms in 1620. All related subjects. He himself was loosely added to the list by now, as he had just yesterday got his mastery in Ancient Runes next to his already existing one in Warding. He considered adding a third one for Curse Breaking, as it was also related and he got a lot of experience during the war. He would have to talk about it with Escalon. But, as he hadn't really studied his two subjects at the same time and sat the exams at the same time, it wasn't a true double mastery, just similar.

He was sure that Rose would pass. She knew her stuff and he knew that she wanted to have the masteries secured before they started another project.

Rose was terribly jealous of Lily at times and was more than eager to finally have a child of her own. Being twenty-four years old, she felt ready for that step. But she had been firm in first getting her two masteries to have something to show once she wanted to start working again after the child was old enough to be left alone for a while with a caregiver. Potions and Herbology would allow her to work from home, sending her finished potions off to the customers, or apothecaries that agreed to work with her. But without the masteries, she wouldn't have been taken serious enough by business contacts. For the common potions that she had sold while being in her apprenticeship, it had been okay, but the ones that sold for more gold, could only be sold by masters. Otherwise the ones buying them wouldn't trust the quality and therefore not buy them.

Sirius knew that a lot of talented witches had ended in jobs that didn't match their talent and abilities, but they had become pregnant too early on and couldn't finish traineeships or apprenticeships. And when the children were old enough to let them work again, mostly when they went to Hogwarts, those witches had to take any position that was open. Mostly being secretaries or shop assistants, instead of going up the ladder and having a career of their own. Or they never managed and had to depend on their husbands to bring in enough money to care for their families. Rose, being a Ravenclaw, had known about this from very early on. Older girls had talked about it and discussed strategies how to avoid that fate, while still adhering to their family's wishes for them to catch a good husband.

He was alerted from his thoughts when the door opened and his wife exited, looking a bit nervous, but not as if she had messed something up.

"And, how did it go?" Sirius asked.

"I think it went fairly well, love," She replied and snuggled against his chest, his arms automatically embracing her, "But it was harder than I expected it to be. They tested my knowledge and skill in both subjects at the same time and I think one of the examiners is against women gaining masteries in his subject."

"Probably one of the old fools that are still convinced of the overcome role models. Don't worry, just one voice in the group won't make up the decisions and I know that nobody can be dismissed for a mastery because of gender. They have to give oaths before testing candidates for masteries that they will judge fairly and only based on the set requirements of their craft. Simply because there were prejudices against those from poor or less acknowledged families in the past and it was taken offence to when the number of masters was at an all-time low and the country in dire need of more masters. The Ministry at the time decreed that the examiners of each mastery test have to swear to judge as objectively as they can and there are lists of benchmarks that have to be met," Sirius assured her.

"Theoretically I know that, but I' still nervous, Siri," She admitted.

"I think I know of a way to distract you," Sirius replied grinning.

"Oh, and what did you think up?" She asked interested.

"I thought about some practice for the project after giving you the full body massage," He whispered into her ear, "You certainly deserve some pampering."

"I love you your mind works," She smiled back and let him take her away to the apparition point.

The results would only come out in about a week anyway.

* * *

Anastasia Rose Black was born one year after her mother has passed her double masteries with flying colours. And, like many baby girls before her, she had soon wrapped her father around her little finger without ever truly trying. Sirius adored his daughter and was incredibly happy to be a father. He named James Potter her godfather and Rose decided to have Annabel Prewett be her godmother. Annabel was the witch that had dragged Gideon Prewett out of his depression over his twin brother's sacrifice and worked as a mind healer at St. Mungo's. She had been a Ravenclaw in Rose's and Sirius' year at Hogwarts and had been a good friend of Rose for a long time.

She had stayed neutral in the war, like the Black couple, and had concentrated on healing people instead of fighting. Even the Death Eaters had never attacked the hospital. No matter what, there were lines that the extremists would never cross and attacking a place of healing was among those. After all, you never knew when you needed the services of the healers there yourself. And specialists that worked independently were rare to find in Great Britain. Even Voldemort had accepted that and declared any kind of magical hospital a safe zone.

The Prewetts had been married for a year now and Annabel was showing signs of pregnancy herself. She was four months along and very excited over having a baby of her own. She had already decided to return the trust Rose had shown her by making her the godmother of the baby, no matter if it would be a boy or a girl. Secretly she hoped for a girl, as then the two girls could play together regularly and perhaps also be close friends, like their mothers were.

Sirius had been promoted to leading a series of projects all over Great Britain for Greengrass Enterprises. After the war, the company had got fewer jobs for immediate warding work, instead many people asked for coordinated building projects, as new houses that were imbibed with warding procedures, were just safer than normal ones that were warded the classic way. Sirius was the one to instruct and oversee the workers that placed the stones with the runes for the wards. He also made sure that the new mortar that was used on the walls, mixed with tiny warding crystals that charged the runes on the stones from within the walls continuously, was spread evenly to have the maximum effect for protection.

A warded house cost about a third more than a normal house that the company of Escalon's brother Mortimer built, but after seeing the horrors of the war, nearly everybody was willing to invest that gold to have peace of mind in concerns of the family's safety.

The Potters had decided to keep living at Potter's Keep. They still hadn't told Dumbledore where they were, simply because Lily was too annoyed with his behaviour over trying to force her to give him access to her godson Neville. Lily absolutely refused and she and James had told the old headmaster to leave them and their family alone, as he clearly didn't know what he was doing. It had been a very harsh row and Sirius had only been told about it afterwards. But currently the name Dumbledore wasn't popular with the Potter family. Which had also grown. Lily had given birth to a second boy two and a half years after the end of the war and was again pregnant, but she and James didn't want to know which gender the baby would be. They liked it best to be surprised when the baby was born.

Jonas Potter was made Remus' godson and the werewolf had been incredibly touched to be trusted enough to be made godfather of any child. And Jonas loved his uncles. Sirius privately wondered how many children the two wanted to have. He himself had talked about it with his wife and they had decided that three would be a great number, if they were lucky to get that far. A number of families couldn't have more than one child, others didn't want to have more, and again others didn't have a choice, as one parent was imprisoned at Azkaban. Moody had made sure that all the scum that had followed Voldemort was ratted out.

It had come as a huge shock to the group that Peter had been among those that had been found to be a Death Eater. The spy inside the Order of the Phoenix that hadn't been found out before. Sirius really didn't know why Peter would do that. He wasn't a fanatic. His reasons had been fear of being killed, as it seemed that Voldemort was taking over everywhere, and joining the side that seemed to win, would give him protection. Well, his crimes were punished and Peter resided in a cell that was warded against animagus transformations.

Thank goodness that Rose had known that the fidelius charm could hide the secret inside the soul of a person that lived under it. Otherwise, it might have happened that Peter was made their secret keeper.

* * *

The birth of the daughter of Sirius Black was discussed a lot, as Sirius had made a name for himself. Several families that had sons around that age, pondered if they would be able to gain a marriage contract with the Blacks for the girl in the future, as the influence of the family was still very large. They had taken more than a few hits, what with several members being found out as Death Eaters, but, thanks to the main heir being clearly opposed to the dark side, their standing was still high. And their fortune was too large to ever ignore. Arcturus, the ageing head of the family, had been happy to be introduced to his great granddaughter. Walburga, who disliked her son and his decisions, was more than miffed that it wasn't a proper heir that had been born, but a girl.

Sirius and Rose didn't care. They didn't have any mentionable ties with Walburga. They ignored her demands with practiced ease and only appeared at those family events that they couldn't avoid going to. With a baby, they had an even better excuse of being too busy.

* * *

 **Time Skip**

Sirius, Rose and Lyra, their two years old daughter, sat in Arcturus Black's lounge, looking at the frail-looking old man. They had left their older daughter Anastasia at the Prewetts to play with her best friend Angela, who was just a few months younger than her. But Lyra was currently in a phase where she started crying as soon as her mother was away and therefore she had accompanied her parents.

"Sirius, I can feel my time coming," Arcturus told his remaining grandson, as steadily as he could.

"I see," Sirius simply replied, "How long?"

"At most half a year, I fear. I want you to officially take over the headship of the House of Black. In the end, you, the one that openly refused to conform to all of our beliefs, were the only one that kept a good reputation in public," Arcturus admitted.

"I can't say that I didn't expect those following Voldemort to fall. It was unavoidable. Had this madness spread far beyond Britain, the ICW would have interfered after all. And you know the reputation of the regulators. After the mess Grindelwald made, they would never let some dark wizard's madness spread beyond the borders of one country," Sirius pointed out, "Not to mention that anybody with a sliver of sense would see that killing innocents would never be seen as anything but a horrible crime. Blood status can't excuse coldblooded murder, and it was nothing but that."

"You have always had strong convictions, Sirius. I'm glad we could hold you in the family, even if we had to allow for compromises with you. It seems that the previous ideology of the Blacks nearly ruined our once proud house. Look at the mess we have made. And I will admit, as old age made me see clearer, that the old generation is much at fault for this. Bellatrix in prison for following a dark lord, together with her husband and brother-in-law. Andromeda disinherited for bringing shame upon our house for marrying a muggleborn. Narcissa in disgrace over marrying another Death Eater, only spared because she didn't take the mark herself. Then your brother, also killed in service of that dark lord. We lost many to poisoning and illness. Now there are only Cassiopeia and me left of the older generation. From the generation of your father only your mother and aunt Irma remain.

"No, if the Blacks are to ever return to true power, they need to follow your path. One of mediated pride in our heritage as purebloods with some more common sense and sense for right and wrong inside of them. We made the mistake of supporting somebody that said that he was for pureblood supremacy and bringing us back to our rightful place in society," Arcturus commented.

"Which anybody that didn't have tunnel vision could have told you was a convenient lie to charm more followers to his side," Rose now spoke up, "He has killed more purebloods than anything in the past managed to do. Anybody not agreeing with his methods was branded a blood traitor and persecuted by him and his Death Eaters. I mean, look at what happened to Barty Crouch. He was from one of the oldest pureblood lines in our country and certainly not very pro-muggleborn. He definitely preferred the old lines when he hired aurors and other workers for the DMLE. And he was tortured to insanity by his own son, next to Bellatrix and Rabastan. And he was just doing his job."

"Yes, I can see that now. I will announce your ascension to head of the family during the next Wizengamot session, Sirius. I leave any kind of decisions about the course of the family to you. I'm too old and weak to do anything mentionable anymore. And if your mother acts out, well, there are some useful aspects about being family head. Like locking her up at Grimmauld Place if she tries to harm you and your family," Arcturus pointed out.

"I understand, grandfather. I will accept the position, but I surely will change the way things are done. Only then the Blacks will be able to survive," Sirius stated.

Arcturus nodded, took off the ring that showed his position as head of the family and Lord Black and handed it over to Sirius. He looked at it for a moment, then slipped it onto his right middle finger, where the ring quickly resized to fit him perfectly. A small flash later and Rose had a matching ring on her right middle finger, declaring her Lady Black. The same ring that had previously been on the hand of the recently late Melania Black.

* * *

The ascension of Sirius Black to Lord Black was talked about a lot. Those knowing the young man better, knew that the way the house of Black was acting would radically change. Contrary to most members of his family, Sirius was firmly neutral, neither supporting any extreme side in the last war. He was a respected master of Warding and Ancient Runes, with skills in many other areas as well, next to being a registered animagus. And he had been one of the youngest ever to master that difficult ability.

Some of his starting actions made it very clear that he wouldn't let his house continue down the path of self-destruction. He chose to offer Andromeda Tonks nee Black the old option of returning into the family fold by proving that her going against the wishes of the previous pater familias had been to the advantage of the house. It wasn't hard for her to do just that, pointing out that her halfblood daughter had inherited the thought lost metamorphmagus ability that the Blacks had once been famous for. Reactivating such a valuable ability in a halfblood child was reason enough for Sirius to bring Andromeda and her family back into the house of Black, and nobody, no matter how much Walburga ranted about it shaming the proud Blacks, could argue about Sirius having the right to do so.

Many others even praised him for the clever move, as inherited magical abilities were highly valued. And just the marriage to a muggleborn, who was easily convinced to accept Sirius as head of the family and to aid him like all members of the family were duty bound with the pater familias, could be overlooked if it brought back something like the metamorphmagus ability. Andromeda was given the custom dowry for a daughter of house Black into her and Ted's vault and Nymphadora got a trust vault like all daughters of the house of Black were entitled to.

Narcissa, who had to decide what she wanted to do, proved to be a true Slytherin and promised to follow the direction her cousin was choosing for the Blacks, as she had nothing to win by keeping to the Malfoy name. Thanks to Lucius being caught and imprisoned as a Death Eater, she was disgraced as Narcissa Malfoy. Returning to being Narcissa Black, and having her marriage officially dissolved, would at least give her and her son more protection. And, not being stupid at all, even if she hadn't been the best student during her time at Hogwarts, she had raised Draco more neutrally than she would normally have done.

He was taught to value the traditions of wizarding society, but not to dislike those not being purebloods. He was proud to be born a pureblood, but he knew that he should never underestimate those not being from purely magical lines, as that was detrimental to success in his plans. Narcissa had decided that making sure that her son knew not to insult others for being below his standing would be the only way to secure a future for him. She had known for years that Sirius would one day take over the Black Lordship, as the only male descendent left that could, and, while she still held onto the pureblood supremacy beliefs of her parents, she knew too well that you had to sacrifice things if you wanted to survive in this world. And as a mother, she would always put the well-being of her child before her personal pride.

After having got an audience with Sirius and Rose, where she introduced Draco to the new head of the Black family, Sirius agreed to dissolve her marriage with Lucius based on his imprisonment and let her and Draco take on the Black name. He also made it clear that Draco wasn't in line to inherit the Black title in any case, but Narcissa was too glad to have the backing of a powerful family name again to care. Draco still inherited the Malfoy fortune, as he was the biological child of Lucius, but he would only be hindered by the name. The Malfoy name would always be associated with being Death Eaters, even if more Black family members had supported the cause, but the Black name was associated with the star of Sirius, who was known to have assisted in protecting their people with his work and sending any caught Death Eaters to the DMLE, to be judged for their actions by the Wizengamot.

* * *

Over the years Moody succeeded with cleaning house and brought Wizarding Britain back onto a healthy course. His actions got rid of the worst bigots inside the Ministry and other influential positions. Bribery didn't work anymore, as he always caught the ones attempting it. Five years after the fall of Voldemort he had got a number of laws passed that gave the aurors the right to independently investigate anybody associated with any kind of terrorist group, with all means that weren't dark arts. Meaning he was free to feed them veritaserum if he had clear proof or at least very strong clues that hinted at the involvement of the person with such an organisation.

It certainly helped with people thinking twice about going back to the extreme pureblood ways. Other laws dealt with punishment of bribery inside the government. He had tried to also deal with bribery in economy, but so far he didn't have the lobby for that. But at least he could make sure that political decisions couldn't be simply bought anymore. Those being caught, and he always did so, were sent to the low security wing of Azkaban for two years. And no matter what, some advantages weren't worth that, as a sentence at Azkaban also terminated your chances for holding any kind of political position in Wizarding Britain for life. People actually had to convince others of their political goals and the ability to give good speeches and making compromises became much more valuable to people.

The best part for many politicians that didn't want a repeat of the terror that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had spread was that Moody had absolutely no political ambitions. He was a law enforcer at heart and being able to finally assure that the DMLE got the job done the way it should be, without rich slime balls being able to buy their way out of prison, was all he ever wanted. Moody's course was supported by the light and neutral factions of the Wizengamot and it showed in people on the streets being much happier with the way the government got back onto its feet after the war.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore wasn't a happy camper. He had tried, again and again, to win a measure of influence in the life of Neville Longbottom, but his grandparents, after the death of Richard Longbottom only his grandmother Augusta, refused to let him have any voice in how the boy was to be raised. And any excesses, for example Algernon Croaker's attempts to make Neville show magic early on, were met by a furious redhead in the form of Lily Potter, who threatened to take Neville away from the Longbottoms, with free visitation rights for Augusta, if they didn't cease their idiocy at once, or she would show them exactly how she had managed to make the Death Eater idiots fear her in battle. Augusta had quickly agreed and while her brother may have grumbled about it, everybody knew that Lily wasn't joking. And as the remaining godparent she had that power.

Neville was, as far as he could determine during the few appearances that the boy had in public, a normal little wizard, who was good friends with Harry Potter. And Harry seemed to be like his mother, always protecting his friend when the public got too rowdy, wanting to be close to the Boy-Who-Lived. Not to mention that he had got his father's mischievous streak and talent to place pranks on the people that really annoyed him and had managed to make Neville his accomplice in them. But it was clear that he was also greatly influenced by his godfather, Sirius Black, who made sure that the boys didn't go too far, explaining the difference between pranking and bullying others to them.

Together with the fact that Neville was given a support base of adults that were generally considered great role-models, Dumbledore didn't have a chance to position himself into the boy's life. Instead the boy was taught to not take Dumbledore's words, which was an insult in itself, as gospel. HE was the leader of the light. He really didn't like being doubted like that. But he had no power over the situation. The political stage had greatly changed in the house cleaning that Alastor had performed. It certainly was for the better in general, but it also required him to change his methods. He had known for decades how to work around or with the older members of the Wizengamot to get what he wanted. Now, as the bigots were nearly all imprisoned at Azkaban, the composition of the Wizengamot had changed. Sirius had also pushed through a new law to refill the empty seats that couldn't be filled with replacements for the families that had held the seats before. Be it because all members were now prisoners at Azkaban, or died out.

Those seats with underage heirs were held in trust until the heir would turn twenty. The Wizengamot required the seat holder to have graduated school and to make it easier for everybody, it had been decided to simply go with a minimum age of twenty years to be allowed to fill a seat. The normally two years after graduation until reaching that age were to be used to study the laws that the Wizengamot had to uphold. Now, for the seats that were forfeit for a family, an election process was created. The available seats would all be the same, no matter what rank the previous holders had had. One vote per seat. The other seats were also changed to that, which made votes more transparent. It had taken some convincing, but in the end the remaining delegates agreed to the change, as it didn't really reduce their influence. The most they were losing were two votes, but with having it pointed out that it was unfair and had allowed the old, darker families to assist Voldemort, it was a strong vote for the change.

The available seats were then published in the Daily Prophet and all those that were interested in taking part in the creation of laws in their country and occasionally being called upon for trials, were given a period of three months to hand in their application and pass a competency test, which included proving that they knew the general laws of Wizarding Britain. After that the ones that managed to pass the test would be presented to the public in a special edition of the Prophet, with a summary of their experience, profession and so on. They got guidelines on how to set the introduction up and then could work on it themselves.

After that the witches and wizards of Great Britain got to elect five candidates each. There were about twenty seats available, therefore the twenty candidates that managed to get the most voices would be filling the seats. All seats were given out for five years, after that new elections would take place. It was a revolutionary system for the wizarding world, but it was agreed upon easily. It was a trial run for the currently empty seats. If it proved workable, the older seats that had once been part of the Wizengamot, would be reactivated in the same manner. After all, currently there were only twenty-three inherited seats left, a record low number. At the beginning, when the Wizengamot was founded, there had been seventy-eight families that got a voice in how their country should be led.

While Dumbledore certainly believed that bringing the numbers back to that level was desirable, he wasn't sure about the elected members part. It took after all time to get an idea of how certain people would vote and that period could be too short to have a reliable idea. While some might get further periods to hold the seat, it wasn't a given and the composition of the Wizengamot would change constantly. He wasn't really sure if he liked that. He couldn't reliably predict how votes would go in that situation, and that was how he had managed to keep his influence for all those years.

He would have had more support for sure, had he been given access to Neville, who held a special place in the hearts of the people. He really hated that he had lost control so badly.

* * *

Sirius looked at the small bundle in his arms. After eight hours of labour, he got to hold his first son, Aries. After two girls, Anastasia and Lyra, he now had a little boy as well. He was incredibly happy about this. While he loved his children equally, he also knew that having a male heir to continue the name was important for his standing in society. And he and Rose didn't plan to stop at three children. Rose was determined to have five. He didn't mind at all. They had more than enough money and he loved children. James sometimes joked that he was determined to rebuild the wizarding world with a strong influx of Blacks, well, Sirius decided, as long as they followed his opinions, there could be worse things than having a lot of Blacks running around again. He just had to make sure that Rose and he raised their children with their values, not the old ones that drove his family close to extinction.

"I'm so happy, my love," He told Rose, who was drenched in sweat and really tired after the long labour.

"Me too," Rose replied.

"I love you so much. Our little Aries will fit wonderfully into our family," Sirius stated.

"His big sisters will certainly be really happy. They wanted to have a little brother for a change," Rose weakly chuckled.

"Sleep, love. You more than deserve a nice, long sleep. I'm going to present Aries to his big sisters and the extended family," Sirius told her.

"Okay," Rose agreed and closed her eyes, the midwife giving Sirius assurance that everything was okay and she only needed rest.

Sirius left the room and walked into the waiting room, where his two daughters were watched over by James, Lily and Gideon Prewett. Anabelle was also close to giving birth and there had been fake contractions before, thus the healers had decided to keep her at the hospital to be ready when it really happened. The children were currently also here, as they had heard about a new Black baby being born and had wanted to see it. As there were many other children to play with, Gideon didn't see any problem with it, as he didn't have to find a babysitter for them, even if his sister never minded having them over to play with her children.

"Padfoot, how did it go?" James was the first to ask.

"Everything went well. Rose is asleep right now. It was exhausting for her. I want you all to meet my son, Aries Sirius Black," Sirius announced.

The first one to look at the new baby was Lily, who cooed over the infant. Then his daughters got to see their little brother, while Sirius sat down on a chair, so that they could see him better.

"He's tiny," Anastasia stated.

"An' red," Lyra added.

"His skin will turn a normal colour in some hours. All babies are a bit red after they are born," Sirius explained to his children.

The other children and the two men also had a good look at the new baby.

"Welcome Aries," Anastasia said and gave her little brother a short kiss on the cheek, which Lyra then copied, under the smiling watch of Sirius.

After fifteen minutes Sirius took Aries back, while James and Lily took the girls back with them to Potter's Keep, where they were staying until Rose could go home with Aries. They had always arranged that the children stayed at the home of one of the other families to give the parents a little time to recover from the long time that the labour simply took. And as all children loved their aunts and uncles and cousins, it was easy to arrange.

While not everything was good in their world, many things were turning into the right direction. Sirius Black certainly believed that he had made the right decision all those years ago, which made him meet his wife and set him onto the path of not just following others, but making his own way in life.

* * *

 **And that's another story finished. Till the next one.**


End file.
